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Notion Ink Adam Price, Specs Beat iPad, but Not Release Date

Remember that Notion Ink Adam tablet that we first reported as possible vaporware? Well, we were clearly wrong, and the Interwebs are buzzing with glee over the impressive specs and hands-on demos that have been making the rounds at this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

The Notion Ink guys have really come a long way from their early conceptual designs, and are now showing off a completely functional prototype of what could be a serious iPad killer.

The final specs for the pad include a powerful Arm Cortex A9 Dual Core CPU, an nVidia Tegra 2 graphics chip, and the amazing new PixelQi transflective 1024 x 600 LCD multitouch screen, which works great in either a darkened room or bright daylight. Battery life with the backlight on is 16 hours, but with the backlight off, you’re looking at an astounding 160 hours, which makes this a real contender against the Kindle and the Nook for reading books too.

While most of the images shown here are clearly renders, the guys over Technoholik have some hands-on images and video of the Adam in action…

Compared on specs alone, the Adam blows the iPad out of the water. Check out this comparison from chart from the guys at Notion Ink:

And while the prototype isn’t quite as thin as an iPad, the Notion Ink guys claim the final version will get down to 1.7 pounds and 14mm thick, making it just a hair bigger than Apple’s tablet. That said, there’s a whole lot more computing power in the Adam at this point. And this tablet can actually play 1080p video and Flash, too. The Adam will also include 3G, Bluetooth and WiFi (802.11b/g, but not n) connectivity, as well as A-GPS.

The biggest thing I’m concerned about at this point is that the Adam runs on Android – and I’m not yet convinced that Android has been optimized for a tablet experience. That said, Notion Ink says other OSes will eventually run on the tablet, including Chromium, Ubuntu and other Linux builds.

Prices for the Adam will start at just $327 (USD), and go up to $800 bucks for a completely maxed out version. It’s not known yet what the base model will include compared to the top-of-the-line, but from the looks of these two spec sheets (1 | 2), I think you’ll be shelling out extra dough for the PixelQi version. Notion Ink expects to start shipping the Adam in the June/July timeframe, shortly after the iPad hits.

This is definitely one to watch in the great tablet war of 2010. For more details on the Notion Ink Adam, be sure to bookmark their website and blog for information as it emerges.